Salisbury novichok suspect identified as highly decorated GRU colonel Anatoliy Chepiga

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Investigative journalists claim to have unearthed the real identity of one of the men Britain has accused of poisoning double agent Sergei Skripal in Salisbury.

According to a joint report published by Bellingcat and The Insider, the assassin identified by UK police as “Ruslan Boshirov” is a highly-decorated GRU colonel called Anatoliy Vladimirovich Chepiga.

In 2014, this same officer was awarded Russia’s highest military award by presidential decree. While the Hero of the Russian Federation honour was awarded secretly, given the dates involved, it is likely to relate to operations in Crimea and/or eastern Ukraine.

Apart from Ukraine, Colonel Chepiga also served in Chechnya as part of an elite special forces unit under GRU command. At some point between 2003 and 2010, he was assigned the Ruslan Boshirov alias.

The investigation makes several ingenious, or highly informed, leaps of assumption in the road to identifying the officer.

First, it hypothesises where the suspect may have received specialist education earlier in his career. This leads investigators to a military academy in Blagoveshchensk, Russia's Far East, apparently known for excellence in “foreign language training and clandestine operations.”

A 2018 article about the academy provides an archive picture taken in Chechnya, and the first possible photographic match of Boshirov/Chepiga. The photograph is then verified by cross-referencing with passport data. Here the match is persuasive. A passport photograph of a young Chepiga, from 2003, is remarkably consistent with the passport photograph of “Ruslan Boshirov” from 2009.

The new revelations cast further doubt on the official Russian account, already largely discredited by previous investigations. These revealed classified passport files, empty save for a "top secret" stamp and a phone number that rang through to the Russian defence ministry.

In an interview published on the Kremlin-funded RT network, the two men claimed to be simple Russian tourists, fulfilling a long-held ambition to visit Salisbury’s gothic cathedral. They said they did not know where Mr Skripal lived and that their decision to walk towards his home – rather than towards the cathedral – was pure coincidence.

Earlier this month, British prosecutors charged the two men with the attempted murder of Mr Skripal and his daughter Yulia; more charges relating to the other novichok victims Charlie Rowley and Dawn Sturgess will follow. It is unlikely the men will ever face trial given the hostility of the Kremlin to such an outcome, and the provisions of the Russian constitution, which rule out foreign extradition.

Following publication, British Minister of Defence Gavin Williamson appeared to confirm the conclusions made by Bellingcat and The Insider.

“The true identity of one of the Salisbury suspects has been revealed to be a Russian Colonel. I want to thank all the people who are working so tirelessly on this case,” he said in a tweet.

The positive identification of a decorated GRU officer is likely to have far-reaching consequences for international diplomacy.

A senior Russian military expert quoted in the report contends it would be highly unusual for a colonel to be sent on a field mission such as this.

This, he suggested, was evidence the job was ordered “at the highest level”.